WOMEN at the centre of an NHS egg-freezing scandal may not know for years whether they can have children.
Homerton Fertility Clinic in east London had its licence suspended last week after the fertility watchdog found “significant concerns” and forced it to stop treating new patients.
PAParents face an anxious wait to find out if the problems have harmed their chances of becoming parents[/caption]
The clinic said there had been three incidents where errors occurred during the freezing processes.
This led to the “tragic” loss of “a small number of embryos” either not surviving or being “undetectable”, it said in a letter on its website.
Thousands of potential parents using the service, including private and NHS patients, face an anxious wait to discover if the problems have destroyed their chances of ever becoming parents.
This is because many eggs or embryos remain in storage for years before patients are ready to use them.
The news comes just weeks after two fertility clinics admitted to egg-freezing errors, which left dozens of parents unable to have children.
“It’s horrible,” a former Homerton staff member said.
“It’s only when you thaw the embryo that you can actually see [whether it’s there]. So people are sitting there with a time bomb,” they told the Times.
The London clinic has about 6,000 clients, with around 500 being treated at any time.
Even if they open in May, it’s very hard to trust this place
Nastasia Alberti
So far, fewer than 20 couples have been identified as being affected.
But a spokesman for the Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust acknowledged that they can’t know exactly how my parents have been affected until embryos are thawed out.
They explained that several embryos had been thawed, only for scientists to discover that no viable embryo was visible.
“It’s a small number so far, but there is potential for it to be more going forward,” they said.
The BBC reported that as many as 150 embryos could have been affected in incidents involving up to 45 patients, although this has not been confirmed by the trust.
‘It’s hard to trust the clinic now’
Nastasia Alberti, 32, is one of the thousands of women currently using Homerton Fertility Centre for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment.
She now fears she may never have a child after her clinic had its licence suspended due to significant concerns over the unit.
Nastasia suffers from endometriosis, which can make it hard to get pregnant naturally.
She has been undergoing IVF, which involves transferring a fertilised egg, called an embryo, into a woman’s womb for a year and a half.
Several weeks ago, a nurse from the Hackney hospital called the archive curator to warn the patient her eggs may have been affected by the freezing fault.
A follow-up call a few weeks later revealed that Natasia was one of the lucky ones; her embryo had not been lost.
But now that the clinic has been suspended, she faces a potentially long wait for the process to begin.
If Homerton reopens, her next embryo transfer, due in May, is likely to be pushed back to September since the temporary suspension will lead to a backlog.
Transferring to a different IVF hospital would mean joining the end of another waiting list.
To make matters worse, this is not Nastasia’s first bad experience with the clinic after it halted its IVF services in 2022 due to a staff shortage.
“Even if they open in May, it’s very hard to trust this place,” she told iNews.
“It’s now twice they have done something like this to me in the space of two years. That’s really, really hard.”
What is embryo freezing?
EMBRYO freezing is a method of preserving fertilised eggs so they can be used at a later date.
The process involves removing eggs from the ovaries, fertilising them with sperm from a partner or donor to create embryos.
Once they have been given a week to grow, the embryos are frozen.
The embryos are stored in liquid nitrogen under carefully controlled conditions and are thawed when a woman is ready to have a baby.
Unfertilised eggs and sperm can also be frozen.
Women who are at risk of becoming prematurely infertile include those having cancer treatment or going through early menopause.
Sources: NHS, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and Johns Hopkins University
Peter Thompson, chief executive of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), previously said: “The HFEA has suspended Homerton Fertility Centre’s licence to operate immediately due to significant concerns about the clinic.
“The HFEA Licence Committee made this decision because of the potential risk to patients, gametes and embryos if the clinic’s licence is not suspended with immediate effect.
“We appreciate this may cause concern to patients who are undergoing treatment at the clinic, or have eggs, sperm and/or embryos stored there.
“We do not want to disrupt patients’ treatment if they have already started medication as part of a treatment cycle, so we have made provisions to allow them to complete their treatment if they wish to do so.
“The clinic must continue to store eggs, sperm, and embryos safely.
“All HFEA licensed clinics can be found here and they will be able to advise patients further on transporting their eggs, sperm or embryos if they would like to do so.”